Q&R5

How do you organize your writings?

As we learned in “Helping students Use Textual Sources Persuasively” the way that students should avoid writing their informative writings is in a chronological or time based order. Instead, they should organize their ideas in a way that allows them to argue and persuade their audience more efficiently. This means they have to focus mostly on facts.

In my writing I’ve noticed that I am a more analytical writer. I prefer to go down a list of facts and giving explanations to them in order of importance, rather than attempting to tell a story. I believe that when a writer organizes his or her text(s) based on the importance of the different aspects of the topic, the text as a whole becomes a very persuasive argument. Without sources convincing an audience becomes difficult. The writer needs to provide a ground for their ideas to expand, rather than trying to tell a story and avoid using any type of reference to gain credibility and the trust of the audience.

Credibility is, in my opinion, the key part of convincing an audience. If the information that you present is not credible, then quite simply your audience will be skeptical. However, if the writer uses a source form anther more experienced writer, or data from a scientist or statistician who already has a credible name, then the audience automatically is pushed to think that the argument is at least worth hearing. After that the writer has the ability to use the sources that he or she has gathered to the best of their abilities to convince their audience of something. The art of persuasion is based on how well one person can appeal to another, which further means that in order to convince someone you need to get that person to think about a why they should get involved in something.